Stuck on Stupid: Dem County Supervisor Says Arizona’s Not a Border State

I’m almost at a loss for words here. I’ve heard all sorts of dumb things come out of the mouths of politicians, but Peggy West, a Democrat member of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors is in a league of her own… During a debate on a measure that would call for the county to boycott doing business with companies in Arizona, Ms. West had this to say:

Huh??? She’s didn’t just say “If this was Texas, which is a state that is directly on the border with Mexico, and they were calling for a measure like this saying that they had a major issue with undocumented people flooding their borders, I would have to look twice at this. But this is a state that is a ways removed from the border”, did she?

Yup, she did… Idiot!

One of her fellow Supervisors, Joe Rice, quickly corrected her and she did make a rather valiant attempt at damage control:

While speaking at the meeting, West did go on to talk about National Guard troops on the border in Arizona. West points to that as she tells us that she simply misspoke.

“I did get a passing grade in Geography in high school and in college and I do obviously know that Arizona is on the border,” West said in an interview after today’s meeting.

West claims that the point she was trying to make is that because Texas has a much larger border with Mexico, she might feel differently about such a law in that state. “Had Texas come out with the legislation, having the largest border, I think that I would be more receptive to the fact that there was a problem. But having it be Arizona, having it be the second largest boarder and knowing there are troops on the border in Arizona, it didn’t seem to me that this legislation was particularly necessary at this moment in time,” West said.

Sorry, but I’m not buying that she misspoke… If you watch the video it seems pretty clear she said what she intended to say.

Regardless, Ms. West needs to spend some time in Arizona… Visit Pima County where drug smugglers are reportedly setting up permanent observation posts to monitor the movements of law enforcement agents along the border. Or visit Nogales where Drug smugglers are threatening the lives police officers.

It’s easy for people like Ms. West to criticize Arizona’s new immigration law… She doesn’t live there and doesn’t have to deal with daily consequences of the Federal Government’s failure at one its most basic responsibilities — to protect its citizen from foreign threats. Mexico’s violent drug war is spilling across Arizona’s border and endangering the lives of American citizens… If the Federal Government won’t fulfill its most basic obligation then the Sate of Arizona has to fill void.

Edit: I linked to this below, but I should mention that the National Guard troops Ms. West refers to are not there to help enforce immigration laws, their mission is to help stem the flow of guns and drugs across the border. That’s all well and good, but it’s only half the job… it’s the lack of effective immigration enforcement that’s helped to create the lawless environment along the border.

If we’re going send National Guard troops to the border to interdict the flow of guns and drugs they should also be authorized to help enforce immigration laws while there… The two things go hand in hand.